Be An Encourager

Happy Sunday. As we begin today, I would like to ask for your prayers about the possibility of a separate podcast in the days ahead. I'm looking at equipment and trying to learn some new tricks, and I thank my wife Jeannie for doing a great job behind the scenes with uploading sermons and some podcasts now, but soon a separate podcast. I'll let you know when this happens.

Some of you remember the song "Home, Home on the Range." The movie Toy Story reintroduced this old song to a new generation. There's a line in the song that I love: where seldom is heard a discouraging word. Is that the world you live in, where seldom has heard a discouraging word?

In our world, sadly, we hear so many discouraging words. It's hard to listen to any politician anymore. Every area of our society seems to be filled with discouraging words. Christians, we're called to be different. We need to be encouragers; God expects that of us.

Just over 66 years ago, June the 18th, 1956, on a lake in New York State, a motorboat bounced on a wave and two of the passengers were thrown out. A 50-year-old man and a little girl were fighting for their lives. To keep the girl from drowning, the man held her above his head while the boat circled back. They rescued the girl; the man drowned.

His name was Dawson Trotman. He was the founder of the Navigators, an international discipleship ministry that has changed this world. Time magazine wrote that he lived to save others; his death was just the way he would have planned it. At his funeral, Billy Graham said, "Dolls died how he lived, holding others up." Now that's a legacy. Dawson Trotman was an encourager.

Proverbs 25:11 is one of my favorite verses. It paints such a beautiful picture of how we should be. It says, "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver." Our words should be encouraging words to all we encounter, beautiful words like golden apples on a silver setting.

It was 1983. I was a minister of youth, and I was newly married, and I was in a jewelry store shopping for my new bride. I was looking at a gold chain, I think that was it, and I asked the jeweler behind the counter, "Do you think this will make her happy?" A voice from behind me said, "In a year you won't care." Wasn't that lovely? I will never forget that lady's words of almost 40 years ago.

Words are powerful. With them we can encourage or discourage. A year later, 1984, Genie and I were at a dinner party when a man at the table suddenly blurted out, "I married the ugliest girl I ever dated." I'm not joking, that's what he said. His wife was sitting right there at the table. I couldn't believe my ears; I thought we were on Candid Camera, the old TV show, and his word stung like a knife. He, they were not beautiful words.

We all remember the story of Job. As the story begins, we are told he had 500 oxen and 500 donkeys that were stolen. Some of his servants were killed. Seven thousand of his sheep died in a fire. Three thousand camels were stolen. Last but not least, his seven sons and three daughters were killed by a strong wind.

We're told in Job 2:9 that his wife came to him and said, "Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God and die." She had a choice to use her words to encourage or to discourage, and she blew it. We have that choice every day: encourage or discourage.

In the book of Acts, chapter 4, verse 36, we met a man named Joseph. You don't know him by that name. Let me read the verse to you: "There was a Levite, a native of Cyprus, Joseph, tomb the apostles gave the new name Barnabas, which means son of encouragement." What an honor for Barnabas. He used his words wisely, like apples of gold on a setting of silver.

If you were to be renamed, what would it be? This is Margaret, woman of whining. This is Dan, man of hurtful words. Those names I just chose were from the woman of 1983 and the man from 1984, by the way. Barnabas must have been something special.

The ministry of encouragement changes the world. Acts chapter 9, verses 26, 27, and 28 talks about the importance of Barnabas. The story I'm about to read to you takes place after Saul, who had been a persecutor of Christians, had been changed by God, and he became Paul, a great Christian. When all this was brand new, scripture tells us, "When he, Saul, had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples, and they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him, brought him to the apostles, and described for them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who had spoken him, and how in Damascus he had spoken boldly in the name of Jesus. So he went in and out among them in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord."

I wonder what would have happened had Barnabas not encouraged Paul, and had Barnabas not encouraged the disciples. Barnabas made an eternal difference in this world by being an encourager. We're all called to be cheerleaders. One author wrote that our words are to be like confetti. Isn't that a great description?

So be an encourager. Be careful with your words. Encourage all you meat. Throw confetti all around, and let your words truly be apples of gold on a setting of silver.

Pray with me. Lord, help this to make a difference. Help our lives to make an eternal difference in a world that needs encouragement. Help us to be careful never to discourage, but to use our words to build up. Thank you for your word that challenges us and changes us, and we pray for this day and the days ahead. In the name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God bless. Thanks for watching and listening.